Not to sound like I’m complaining….

I received emails from Apple yesterday (after the 13 days of my 10 day waiting period), telling me that all three of my books had incomplete or non-functioning tables of contents, and were therefore rejected from iBooks. Of course, I am rectifying the issue, but here’s my problem(s).

Nowhere can I locate a copy of any sort of actual requirements for books to be included in the iBooks store, save for the need of a fresh ISBN, which I have. I can find all manner of ‘suggested guidelines’ documents, all of which tell you how to format a document to be converted into the best possible ePub file. These documents do include tips on formatting for a table of contents, but do not, ever, list any kind of requirements. And these files are ~from~ Apple~

Second, I currently have 26 books in my iBooks library (small, I know, but I work a lot), that I purchased, or acquired from the iBooks store. Of these 26 books, SIX (6) have tables of contents. Of those six, one of them is not “active”, meaning you can’t touch a chapter in the table of contents and be instantly whisked away to that chapter in the book. So, 20 books with no table’s of contents, 6 with…

Lastly, two of my three novels were already included in the iBooks store without tables of contents! When I was published under Smashwords, with all their terrible formatting, and profit-stealing, Apple accepted the books without question and put them up for sale, sans tables of contents. But now, with me trying to raise the quality of my books on the store, and take a third party out of the system to further make the products I sell higher in quality and quicker to adjust if needed. NOW, suddenly, a table of contents is required?

Needless to say, I’m a little peeved about this. I’ve sent them an email asking for specific documentation that points out requirements, and where in that document it says a table of contents is required. Meanwhile, I am working to get a table of contents into each book (easy, already done) that will properly export to an ePub document (seemingly much less easy…)

I guess we’ll see how it goes, but it looks as if there will be another couple of weeks before the books are available in iBooks. 🙁